The Magic Inn Goes Away

4162It's Friday, and another bit of Old Portland goes away.

At 816 SE 122nd Avenue there has been a old-school Portland dive bar called the Magic Inn. I don't know how long it was open ... but has to have been decades. Probably set up by Lewis & Clark's Corps of Discovery for all I know. It seemed to be old-school-kicking it up to the last.

For a short time it was owned by the same group that owns Boss Hogg's (home of the Hawgarita, for those who were worried about homelessness for tackily-redubbed house signature beverages, don't worry, at least we have that covered) over on NE 102nd. They'd even painted it up with an exterior mural ... which went away before I quite dithering about taking a picture of it. Sic transit gloria. 

Today, when nearly home from coming in from work, SE 122nd and Stark, which is a bear of an intersection during that time of the commuted on the best of days, was backed up to 127th, and narrowing to a curb lane only. 

I wasn't really in the mood for it, but I went with the flow. So many times on Stark I was turned aside before I could see what the issue was in other traffic problems. I wanted to see what the deal was, this time.

At 122nd, Officer Friendly was diverting all traffic on to 122nd northbound. Couldn't go any farther west without detouring, but I could see that the building, just about 400 or 500 feet south of Stark at that point, was truly immolating. Three great streams of water were pouring from fire equipment onto the site, and smoke billowed up like as a volcanic eruption.

Getting back to the Bank of America's parking lot was a bit of a task; I must admit that I think I missed the most spectacular part. But what I saw when I finally could get there was pretty extraordinary.

 

 

The building is a total loss. Nothing to do but level the thing and sell it to a developer now, which may have been the thing all along, who knows. Some months ago, some small apartments on the same lot, toward the back, also burst into flames. Suffice it to say, Portland Fire Bureau investigators probably are looking at a job of work.

There was a lot of equipment there, to be sure. Three ladder trucks, two engines, and at least one maxillary support vehicle. 122nd and Stark rush-hour traffic were using all the back streets to get around it; northbound traffic SE 122nd passing Market were diverted to 130th, which was stacked from Stark all the way back past the David Douglast HS campus, which is a shade more than a half mile.

Here's a wider angle which gives an idea of how much equipment was on the scene

The Mr. Peeps Adult Superstore, which wss probably set up by a skeevy member of the Lewis & Clark party, was unscathed, as well as the former auto parts show just on the corner of 122nd and Morrison.

Halsey Street in the Golden Hour

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This is Halsey Street in Fairview, looking west during the golden hour of local sunset.

 

The Words of the East Portland Prophets are Written On Freeway Overpasses

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They have to be. We still don't have subways here in Smug Transit Town, USA.

Seen some months ago, westbound on Division at the I-205 overpass:

Here's a poet, who knows it.

As much as I fancy someone out there knows something we don't, I think the reality is they're saying something we all instinctively know but can't necessarily connect. But we will one day or another, one supposes.

Division Street at the Portland City Line

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Back on the outer east side of Portland, as Portland as you can go because the Gresham city line is literally at my back here, at SE 174th Avenue and Division Street, looking west.

This is another example of my poor-man's telephoto, which mostly involves a long sightline and a tight zoom ... but I've always liked the result.

Of interest, off on the horizon, is a hill called Kelly Butte. If you're down Division at about 101st and look south off Division, that's the hill you'll see there; yet another notable member of the Boring Volcanic Field, which is the constellation of nobbly hills starting at Mount Tabor and straggling out into Clackamas County until it merges into the Cascade foothills.

Kelly Butte has a place in Portland Civil Defense and cinematic history, because from 1955 through about 1974, the bunker there hosted Portland's emergency Civil Defense nerve center, to which city officials would rush in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack. In 1957, CBS broadcast a movie titled The Day Called X, a documentary narraated by actor Glenn Ford, dramatizing Portland's response to a notional Soviet bomber assault (this was in the days before ICBMs, when nukes came delivered Dr. Strangelove-style, from the bellies of big planes and the city had time to get out of the way), and that bunker - staffed in the film by people who were really Portland city officials at the time, including Mayor Terry Schrunk - was a key location in the film. In 1974, the bunker became the 911 headquarters for the Bureau of Emergency Communications, and in 1994, the bunker was decommissioned and sealed when 911 moved to a more modern location.

Kelly Butte's current job is holding a lot of Portland's drinking water in underground tanks that once went to the now-decorative reserviors at the foot of Mount Tabor, near SE 60th and Division. 

There was also a legendary honky-tonk out this way, the Division Street Corral, also known as the "D Street"; a legendary venue, it hosted acts from John Mayall to Johnny Cash and Paul Revere and the Raiders. 

The page as https://pnwbands.com/divisionstreetcorral.html, has a pretty complete list of all the musical goodness that passed out that way, and some of the pictures are still up (some have died due to net rot). 

One other thing to note is the wiggliness of what would seem on paper to be a rather straight road, and that's another reason I enjoy creating these pictures. Surveying was precise but I guess sometimes it was never perfect, and drawing straight lines on a sphere, which strikes me as one of surveying's great challenges, introduces quirks of its own. 

It also makes pictures like this look nifty. 

Rest in Power, Dabney Spring

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There's a spot on Historic Columbia River Highway, just a few seconds east of the entry to Dabney State Park, along the Sandy River, and just before Neilsen Road forks off and goes up the hill, on the north side of the road.

One year ago, it looked like this:

That stream of water coming out of the pipe in the cement block was termed a spring by people who visited on a constant basis. Now, HCRH is not a wide road and there is literally no safe shoulder there. During dark winter months when I was coming home essentially at night one had to take great care, and especially when it was a heavy rain, there were great opportunities to hydroplane.

During the autumn of last year, though, the Oregon Dept of Transportation and Oregon Parks and Recreation called an end to the free water party. In these days where everything has an electronic constituency, roadside springs do, too, and there was great discussion about it on Find A Spring, at https://findaspring.org/spring/locations/north-america/usa/troutdalespringdale-by-dabney-troutdale-oregon/. There was a lot of dismay in evidence, people upset over it, blaming City of Troutdale and that, but a correspondent posting as Michelle S laid this upon us:

ODOT and the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department have decommissioned the reservoir overflow pipe along the Historic Columbia River Highway near Dabney State Recreation Area because of increasing road safety concerns at the site.

The area has become a danger with motorists stopping, often partially blocking the travel lane, to fill water jugs. The drainage ditch is often blocked by illegal dumping of material and damaged by vehicle traffic, which causes water to overflow onto the highway and creates dangerous driving conditions.

Oregon Department of Transportation and Oregon Parks and Recreation Department posted signs and shared the pending plan with the Northeast Multnomah County Community Association before decommissioning the overflow, which is located along the north side of the Historic Columbia River Highway near Dabney State Recreation Area, east of the Stark Street Bridge.

The pipe originally supplied water to cool car radiators at the time of the Historic Highway’s construction over 100 years ago and was one of a handful of similar water access points, most of which have already been decommissioned. The water that supplies the pipe was not intended as drinking water.

ODOT and OPRD will evaluate the feasibility of creating safer access in the future.

ODOT has already seen crashes at the site and is taking this step to help ensure there are no more.

The nearest publicly available free water can be found 3.2 miles north along the Historic Columbia River Highway at Lewis and Clark State Recreation Site.

Coming up a year later, you can see that they were serious about it. Here's what it looks like now ...

Pipes are gone, and the one that dispensed the water has been sawed off to the level of the block. 

The concrete baffle blocks are all gone, and the sign spells it out plainly.

Don't tell the officer you didn't see the sign.

Now, one will notice that there is water flowing in the roadside ditch. It's not coming from here; it seems to be seeping out of the hillside by the intersection of Nielsen Road about 100 feet east from there. 

Maybe there is some sort of spring. Still, the idea of a series of water cooling stations for early automobiles has a certain logic to it.

Anyone going out that way will notice a few signs up on telephone poles along the road:

It's a real thing, they also have a website, https://www.restoredabneyspring.org/. It's one of those pre-desgined, out-of-the-box websites, and it's kind of tasteful, actually. but there's been no further change in the status of this roadside water port, so I'm guessing they aren't getting very far in their efforts, or at least not yet.

I mean, never say never, but I think the likelihood of Dabney Spring returning is vanishingly small. 

Sic transit gloria mundi.

This Is Not The Barney You're Looking For

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Stark Street is a great source of street art. You have to know where to find it though.

The intersection of 162nd and SE Stark St sits at the place where Portland leaves off and Gresham picks up. There's a shopping center there, Village Square, which is a vintage edge-of-town suburban shopping center built back when this was the edge of town and suburban.

At the corner is a 76 Station, and alongside that station is a container used as storage. It has be gloriously decorated with joie de vivre. And a Flintstone character.

It's a little bit of a surprise, actually. You think Barney and what comes to mind is a purple dinosaur which used to be ubiqutious on public television, not the second banana to Fred Flintstone.

So, for letting ol' Barney Rubble be the star of the show/ Nothing but respect here from me. Actually, I liked the character of Barney better than Fred. He seemed to be a little bit smarter, in his way. 

The Height of the Eastside Street Art Renaissance, feat. Suspish

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Last August, the brief renaissance of outer east Portlandia street art hit something of a zenith, most of it on the west wall of the building that the Portland Police Bureau's Sunshine Division - which is the PPB's charity public engagement arm - which is located just east of SE 122nd Ave on Stark St.

The west wall has no windows and faces onto the north parking lot of what was once was the Fabric Depot store, and is without a doubt, a honeypot no tagger can resist for long. So, when Suspish showed up on the east side again (the second appearance by the Eugene artist) it was plain that something was going to happen.

So: dateline, east of 122nd on Stark, August, 2023. We have this:

Now, I'm not necessarily a fan of graffiti either, and if you do it in Portland, in some areas, you take your life into your hands. So, if you're going to bring it, bring it memorably. Make it good, make it skillful, make it art. And our various artists who gave us this gallery-in-passing did just that.

First thing, we have on the far left here, is this:

... a big ol' blue-white-black tag, something of a signature, with FOE, East, and '23 and 2023 in various places. This took a little care and design forethought and engages the eye nicely.

Next we have ...

... another appearance from our friend Suspish. The Suspish fish is obvious; the abstract Cylopean face colored in a dusky mustard yellow is also Suspish's work, I believe. 

The mouse is some other artist's work, a johnny-come-lately to the gallery and while inspired and whimsical doesn't quite show the skill that Suspish and this next artist shows.

Speaking of the next artist, here we are:

The original work in this gallery, which I think I've posted about when it first showed up. These two were the first on the building a few months before, and the creativity and artistic skill here still delight my eye. To the credit of the Sunshine Division, they let this stand for a number of months before covering it over, and a lot of us eastbound Stark Street drivers got to enjoy them. 

I particularly adore the intensity of the dude with the spray cans. Chef's kiss here for that.

Again, the signature EAST FOE can be seen by the ear of the figure with the spray cans, so I think it was the same artist that did the big tag on the far left.

To close our gallery tour, this:

SWOOP. Another boi with a hat, and signed again, apparently, by FOE. 

The building has since been painted, and the west wall of the Sunshine Division's building hs returned to that industrial vaguely-oatmealy color. Graffiti - street art - has an expiration date. No matter how skillful it is, it's designed to leave us, as the property owner always has the last word.

Most of it is just lazy marks, but some of it, sometimes, gets really elevated. I hope Suspish comes up this way again eventually, and another visit or two from F.O.E. would not be amiss. 

They brought their A game here, and I was, curiously, happy to see it. 

More New Suspish on Stark Street, or, It Comes From Eugene

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When I saw SUSPISH on the back of the PPD Sunshine Division building on SE Stark just east of 122nd, I was delighted. I love the style of this artist and remembered, as I pointed out here, that we've seen them before.

But there's more delightfulness ... they've returned to the original building we first saw them on. 14410 SE Stark is a kind of a warehous-ey building that at one time, more than a decade ago, held a Hotel/Motel Furniture Liquidators. It closed around a decade ago and has stood vacant ever since. Now, the first time we saw Suspish, it was on the east wall of the building, the one that faces the Franz Bread Thrift Store next door. It was painted over in due time.

Now, it's on the buildings facade:

This differs from the other Suspish, in that we have the angler-fish catching its prey but, moreover, it's more or less the same as the first Suspish that appeared in April 2021, which I include here for comparison:

The addition of sparkles in the first image gives it a little more visual delight.

But there's more. That nifty web thing, the hashtag, accidentally showed me that Suspish isn't just a couple of fun graffiti on the outer east side of Portland. 

Suspish is a Eugene thing. perhaps come to visit, to stop by and leave something in a Banksy-esque way. Eugene Weekly spoke with The Artist back on 2022. They're something of a street-art city mascot down that way. 

The Return of SUSPISH! to Stark Street

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We have, out here in 122nd Land, the occasional recurring cartoon character in the form of graffiti.

Today, one came back. He's SUSPISH, and he's on the back of a building on the south side of Stark just east of 122nd that's exposed to the big north parking lot that still surrounds the former Fabric Depot:

I don't know who his friend is, but it looks like he's been in a scrape or two.

SUSPISH has formerly surfaced along Stark at 146th by the Franz Bakery Thrift store, either in a former anglerfish or perhaps it's a cousin, in April of 2021. We also sustained a very small invasion by friendly aliens back in April (coincidentally) of 2016). 

I do wonder if they are all done by the same local Banksy? 

A Mushroom In Midland

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Exploring the small and mundane but somehow still wondrous, earlier this year, when it was cooler and moister (do you remember, nah, neither do we) there were several of these mycological beasties near the curb in Midland Park

Seeing as it's been an oven here in the Willamette Valley for the past two months, it's probably gone.

The spore thing. 

Pearlescent Russellville Sunset

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Nothing special about this, except tonight was a sunset day for pearlescent fire-clouds which were most gorgeous.

This, looking west from the corner of SE 103rd Dr and Stark Street, bustling downtown Russellville. 

Don't Be A Menace To A Good Night's Sleep

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I was hoping for a picture of the mountain itself as I wended my way home tonight but the sun was down too low. But I did see this rendition of it on a truck parked in downtown Parkrose.

The coinage Beds In The Hood actually only intersects with the idea of Mount Hood awkwardly, at best, but it, along with the rough-and-ready rendition of Wy'east, does suggest a certain O.G.-ness when it comes to selling mattresses.

The price of entry is certainly for you, me, and everyone. They'll get you in that bad boy for just $29 down. 

This almost feels like a Tom Peterson's ad now. 

Harvest Moon 2021

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We make a big deal of the various moons that we get latterly. Thanks to the modern media's unrelenting drive to create interesting content, we know as much about what moons during various times of the year are called as farmers once did.

I should grow something maybe? I don't know.

Anyway, here's this years 'harvest' moon, which, they tell us, is the last full moon before the Autumnal equinox, as seen from the parking lot of Cruiser's Cafe on SE 136th and Division, because burgers, man:

This was taken with the PowerShot SX230HS on the highest level of zoom. There are many millions of pictures out on social media, but this one's mine, and it's better because I made it all artistic and stuff. Those branches in silhouette were no accident, unless they were, ain't sayin'. 

The Distant Smoke of A Distant Fire(s), 2021

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About the only thing that Western Wildfire Season 2021 didn't have that the one in '20 did was thick smoke spilling into the Willamette Valley. 

Not that it didn't try, though.

On a recent evening me and The Brown Eyed Girl found a picnic area in Mount Tabor Park that we'd not known existed (and we are now in love with, because ...) that has a splendid view of Montavilla, Russellville and points east.

In the last missive I spoke of a visual miasma on the eastern horizon hiding the volcanic peak I dote on so, and it was heartbreaking, having occasionally very blue skies overhead only to mute into an unidfferentiated off-gray on the horizon. Well, as we've all seen in the news, the wildfires have been very very busy again this year, and this view from that picnic area on the slope of Mount Tabor clearly (there's irony for you, yes?) explains why:

That long, low, level nimbus in the distance is the edge of the smoke pall from all those fires. One can just name out Larch Mountain there about a quarter of the way in from the left-hand edge of the photo, and Wy'East is typically very prominently just right of that, but the smoke is completely obscuring it. 

Signs and wonders.

The Ron Tonkin Sign - Still Out 122nd Way

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I have taken a picture of this sign before, so its reappearance here is just confirmation that some things in Portland stay, for now, satisfyingly familiar.

Picture it: it's the 60s, and East 122nd isn't the commercial corridor that it is today, and is certainly a lot more whitebread. And, out in this area, two brothers build competing car dealerships.

If they ever gave this road a name-name, it should perhaps be Tonkin Boulevard. At the north end, at NE Halsey St, Marv Tonkin built a Ford dealership (now Courtesy Ford) that left us a long time ago but whose jingle still rattles around in the mind of some of us old-timers.

It's brother Ron's dealership, however, that survived, and became a local empire unto itself, including a Nissan dealership across from his brother's old location (spun off into Russom's Nissan of Portland) and a ultra-luxury dealership called Ron Tonkin's Gran Turismo (which has latterly removed to Wilsonville). 

The 122nd Ave dealership still stands strong in its original location though,as does the three-story sign, which was a common thing back when things like this were built but today is, truly, the last of an ancient breed, even outliving its namesake founder.

I mean, even the old Wentworth Chevytown sign (and the used-car lot it was planted in) is gone now.

But long may Ron razzle-dazzle us, out 122nd way.

Division and 122nd Standard Time

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This is a clock tower at the southwest corner of SE 122nd Avenue and Division Street, as seen from Division, going east. The Division Center, a rubric with a sort of awkward poetry to it, refers to the shopping center it serves as a landmark for. 

The building was Payless ShoeSource for a long time before it was a cell phone store. In my fantasies, it's an art supply store run by me and my wife.

We have two clocktowers on SE 122nd Avenue. One is at the Mighty Mighty Midland Branch Library, the other, here. They have one thing in common. The correct time would not be that thing.

This photo was taken at about 8:20 PM, last Wednesday. That is not, as it can be seen, the time on the face of the clock. There is little doubt in my mind that, had we gone down 122nd and the library clock would have also been askew. Not the same way, of course; that would give away the conspiracy of ... something, somehow. 

See, Out 122nd Way, you can have accurate time, or cool clock towers.

You cannot, apparently, have both.

It's Not Really That Bad Out Here, I Don't Care What The Sign Says

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Just south of SE Washington St, adjacent to Mall 205, the very short couplet that is SE 102nd Ave/SE 103rd Dr merge to form a short diagonal road called SE Cherry Blossom Drive with connections to SE 112th Avenue, Portland Adventist Hospital, SE Market Street and a range of places south, east, and west of there.

I put this in front of you because I noted, on my commute home, that the back of the sign has been creatively edited.

I have a number of issues, here.

The least of which is that the area this opens up into, a little, beige, bland, banal Portland neighborhood called Mill Park (which is my home: I'm a perfect fit!) is about as far away from Hell as can be. It would be, at best, the Gateway to Heck, or maybe the Gateway to Darn, the Portal to Shucky-Darns, or the Access to The Place Where They Ask You About Your Car's Extended Warranty.

Not really a fair cop here.

Another question that comes to mind is that this is actually the side of the sign that thanks you for coming, which really raises the question of whether or not Hell has revoked its formerly one-way policy and is now promoting package tours to make a few extra bucks.

It is that kind of age, after all. And things have gotten tough; after all, just before we out here settled the question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, Fabric Depot up and went out of business on us.

NE 122nd Avenue Looking North on a December Morning in 2017

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Dredging through some old pictures, I found this one.

My favorite street in the world, E 122nd Avenue (NE 122nd, in this case) looking north from the pedestrian overpass just north of San Rafael St, near the ECR recycling yard. 8 Dec 2017, 7:35 AM (I just love EXIF data, don't you?). 

A particularly delicately tinted morning. I don't remember anything else about it.

The Portland Immigrant at Sandy and Killingsworth

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It's kind of an inauspicious place to be honored.You can't really pull over to admire this monument.

At the west end of Parkrose's business district, that busy place where NE Killingsworth (or NE Lombard, this time next year) terminates at Sandy Blvd, and where NE Sandy Blvd ceases its diagonal climb out of the Portland's core to align with the historic route of the Columbia River Highway, where traffic to and from I-205 throngs day and night, and where the only neighbors are two hotels and a cemetery, there's a traffic island where the flow parts to go every which way, and there is a landscaped terrace on this island which functions as a plinth of sorts, and on it, a weary-looking fellow casts a tired gaze on the Best Western Pony Soldier Inn.

The Portland Immigrant gazes at the Pony Soldier Inn,
Sandy Blvd dwindling into the background

The Portland Immigrant means to remind of all of us the vitality and spark that those who come from other countries and parts of the world bring to the blend of people and dreams that try to coalesce to form Portland, and that they may come here as weary travellers but with energetic dreams they too want to make real.

The surroundings, as I said, don't lend ones' self the opportunity to pull over and look. Where Sandy Blvd cruises through Parkrose also happens to be the place, once, where most people who came to Portland entered town; at one time, this was Portland's northeast corner, and US 30 the main road into town. There's no real place to pull over to enjoy this spot so, in a certain sort of cosmic sarcasm, motorists tend to race past, not really paying the monument much mind, unconsciously mirroring some of American society's poorer attitudes about the role immigrants play.  

Still he remains, just waiting for you to see him and what he means. It's your move, my friend. 

The Shabby Quick Shop At Stark Firs

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There's this throwback of a trailer court on the south side of SE Stark Street, just east of the entrance to Floyd Light Middle School* at approximately 108th Avenue. 

It's called Stark Firs, and the old structures and manufactured homes are vintage and arranged like dominoes, at fairly close quarters. It is prole as hell and I love it. I've lived temporarily in places like it and have known people who've grown up in such places. It has a piece of my heart.

No actual firs seem to be in it, but a great deal of asphalt.

There is a shabby quick-shop at the front of it. Here it is, as taken through the just-washed windshield of Olivia earlier today:

Save for rearranging of the fractal confetti of beer ads and various retail poster ads on the outside, it's looked more or less like this ever since we moved out this was some 15-more years ago. It's seen a lot of life, there's been a gun crime or two over the years, no more than you'd expect for a big town, but still it soldiers on, too stubborn to die.

And that is one reason I love it so. It's beautiful, not shi-shi enough for the region of Portland east of I-205, but perfectly at home out here, where the people are still quite real.

It is adorable. I love this.